The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

104 The Management and Treatment of the Horse,
inclose in it a portion of this extravasated blood.
Another, and the most common cause of corns, is
allowing the shoes to remain too long on the horse's
feet ; nothing is more injurious than to allow a shoe
to remain too long on the foot, yet many owners of
horses, to save a few shillings per year, will let the
shoes remain on the horse for six weeks and two
months at a stretch, at the risk of producing corns,
and spraining the back sinews by an extra amount of
leverage caused by the lengthened growth of the toe.
The shoe remaining on too long is sure to become
embedded in the heel of the foot, consequently the
hoof grows down on the outside of the shoe and the
bearing is thus thrown on to the angular portion of
the sole. Continual pressure on the sole is sure to
induce inflammation and corns, the shoe being on a
loner time sets loosened at the heels, which admits of
O ft '
gravel between it and the crust, which having accumu-
lated at the angles naturally insinuates itself into
the heels and produces a sore. As I said before,
nothing can be more injudicious than to allow the shoes
to remain too long on ; even if they are not worn out
they should be taken off every twenty-one days and
re-adjusted to free the feet from long continued
pressure. In shoeing, too, tlie blacksmith will often
resort to that injurious and ridiculous cutting and
shaping of the foot, and cutting away the bars. This
renders it necessary that the shoe should be levelled
inward, so as to accommodate it to their senseless
cutting and shaping of the foot; consequently an
unnatural disposition to contraction is induced by this